AK25-46. Chester L. Richards, From Star Trek® to Crocodiles

November 17, 2025November 15, 2025Self Discovery Wisdom Podcast

An Authors Kiss with Sara Troy and her guest Chester L. Richards, on air from November 18th

From Star Trek® to Crocodiles: Chester L. Richards talks new memoir, The Trek Continues

Award-winning author and rocket scientist returns with true tales of hair-raising adventure and resilience.

Retired rocket scientist and author Chester L. Richards. Author, inventor, and co-writer of the iconic Star Trek episode “The Tholian Web,” Chester L. Richards continues his acclaimed Treks Beyond the Great Potato memoir series with The Trek Continues: More Memoirs of a Rocket Scientist

In this second volume, Richards expands on the journey he began in From the Potato to Star Trek and Beyond, blending pulse-pounding adventure with poignant reflections on life, love, and loss. From near-death experiences with crocodiles in Africa to a white-knuckle flight back home in California, The Trek Continues dives deep into the real-life escapades of a man who helped imagine the universe onscreen—and then went out and lived it.

Richards shares what it meant to survive, to grieve, and to grow. Central to the memoir is his late wife Sarah, a brilliant and spirited presence readers first glimpsed in Book 1. Responding to fan letters asking to learn more about her, Richards infuses this new collection with her voice, her stories, and the extraordinary impact she had on his life. There are also stories of eccentric animals (including cats, a dog named Hector, and a horse—almost), scientific breakthroughs in aerospace and on earth, close calls with Neolithic tribes, and the unexpected wisdom of failure.

“Every story is a letter of love to Sarah,” Richards writes. “Each stands on its own. Each is an adventure. And each is true.”

Known for his witty, self-deprecating style and cinematic detail, Richards proves again that memoir can be both thrilling and intimate. A scientist by training and adventurer by instinct, he invites readers to see life not as a linear path—but as a series of treks, each one worth telling.

“Adventure starts when your gut clenches and you do it anyway,” says Richards. “That’s when you find out who you really are.”

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Chester L. Richards is a retired aerospace engineer and inventor with nineteen patents, and a new one pending. While still in college, he co-wrote “The Tholian Web,” one of the most beloved episodes of the original Star Trek. He went on to lead a life of exploration and innovation—surfing Southern California, navigating deadly rapids in different locales, including Ethiopia in the midst of a civil war, and designing technologies for space exploration. He is the author of From the Potato to Star Trek and Beyond and The Trek Continues, and has had more than fifty essays published, so far. He lives in Thousand Oaks, California, where he writes, plays music, and reflects on a life well lived and still boldly going.

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AK25-39. Sam Hawksmoor, Flamenco can be Murder

September 29, 2025October 1, 2025Self Discovery Wisdom Podcast

Authors Kiss with Sara Troy and her guest Sam Hawksmoor, on air from September 29th

“In Sam’s new novel Days After She Went Dancing, readers are taken on a gripping journey of liberation, murder, crypto, and friendship—all woven together in one powerful story.”

Nia is an editor at a small publishing house with secret dreams of becoming a Flamenco dancer. She meets with a psychic/fortune teller who warns her that she must leave her abusive husband immediately; she sees extreme danger coming.
That night Nia discovers her husband owns a fake passport, a gun and a bundle of Euros of hidden in the freezer. She suspects he’s either leading a secret life or about to leave her. The cash is a chance to beat him to it and escape to study dance in Spain.
The very morning Nia flees, her husband, and her father-in-law are executed in a professional hit. Naturally, the police and the media look no further than the scheming,’ killer housewife’ who has fled the scene.

Enter Joss, a tracker for a news outfit, dispatched to trace this woman before anyone else can get to her. But her husband’s killers have unfinished business with Nia and won’t be far behind.
All Nia wanted was to change her life, but as people say, ‘be careful of what you wish for.’

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Sam says “Ever since I was a child, I’ve found myself lost in the world of words and stories. I am Sam Hawksmoor, and writing isn’t just what I do; it’s who I am. It’s like I discovered my calling before I even knew what a calling was. Each blank page was a canvas for my imagination, a gateway to unknown worlds and uncharted territories’.

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AK25-38. A Moon in All Things? by Jennifer Comeau

September 22, 2025September 23, 2025Self Discovery Wisdom Podcast

Authors Kiss with Sara Troy and her guest Jennifer Comeau, on air from September 23rd

Jennifer Elwell Comeau, author of the new book, A Moon in All Things? Perfect for readers enchanted by Irish folklore and stories that echo the timeless call of nature, A Moon in All Things reminds us that the true magic of life is waiting if we dare to reach for it.
Fans of Outlander’s Claire Fraser and The Frozen River’s Martha Ballard will love Comeau’s Morrigan Lane, who is fiercely devoted to discovering her healing gifts.

In the wild heart of 1820s Ireland, young Morrigan Lane hears the sea’s call—and her ancestors’ ancient voices. Born with a connection to the mystical lands of her Celtic heritage, Morrigan is no ordinary girl. She dreams of adventure, breaking free from the restrictions of village life, and, above all, sailing beyond the distant horizon.
But Morrigan finds herself pulled into a mysterious journey when a haunting vision of the Irish sea god, Manannán mac Lir, beckons her into his shadowy world. Against the backdrop of Ireland’s rugged cliffs and ancient stone circles, she must navigate myth and reality, confronting age-old traditions, family secrets, and the fierce expectations placed upon her as a young woman.

A Moon in All Things is a spellbinding tale of Celtic mysticism, forbidden dreams, and the resilience of the human spirit. Fans of historical fantasy and coming-of-age adventures will be swept away by Morrigan’s quest for self-discovery in a world where land and sea, myth and truth, are deeply intertwined.

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Jennifer Comeau is a Certified Forest Therapy Guide, singer-songwriter, and author-speaker. Her forthcoming debut novel, A Moon in All Things, is a woman’s quest to reclaim her ancestors’ old ways of healing and intuitive magic. She lives in Kennebunkport, Maine, where she works globally on restoring nature-human interconnection.

“Atmospheric and beguiling … Comeau uses the Irish setting … and tales of the Otherworld and Tuatha dé Danann to craft an ethereal, fablelike narrative. Morrigan, … friends, family, and fellow villagers, come alive … fitting perfectly into the picturesque village … Morrigan’s frustration with the imposed limits on her gender adds a fascinating dimension to the spooky tale..”—Kirkus Reviews

“Tears, sighs, fabulous!”—Geralyn White Dreyfous, Academy Award-winning film producer“Atmospheric, subtle, and captivating”—Foreword Reviews, Clarion

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AK25-38. Constanze Hawkins, Natures Poetry

September 22, 2025September 21, 2025Self Discovery Wisdom Podcast

An Authors Kiss with Sara troy and her guest Constanze Hawkins, on air from September 23rd

Inspirations is a collection of photographs, each accompanied by a poem depicting Constanze Hawkins’ love of the natural world. The poems capture the thoughts and wonder inspired by the photos. Constanze took all of the photographs herself, mostly near her Perth home on the grounds of the University of Western Australia. Even the photo of the peacock was taken at UWA, which has a few peacocks and peahens roaming freely in its gardens.
Inspirations offers an interesting, and at times thought-provoking, read as Constanze’s reverence for nature shines through in both image and verse.

Constanze discusses a wide range of themes found in her work. She often reflects on the challenges of handling loss, weaving emotion and experience into verse. She can also explore how the length of a poem influences the way readers engage with it, and how nature—its beauty, complexity, and timelessness—continues to inspire her writing. With her background in fashion, Constanze brings a unique perspective on how that world has shaped her creative voice. She also pairs her poetry with photography, offering a visual dimension that deepens the reader’s experience. Another recurring theme in her work is the lament for the loss of childhood, which she captures with poignancy and thought-provoking insight.

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Constanze Hawkins was born in Stuttgart Germany. Her family migrated to Melbourne Australia when she was four. Hawkins studied fashion at the Melbourne College of Textiles. She completed her studies after her marriage, and her young family’s move to Perth, Western Australia. She also earned a Graduate Certificate of Design from the Curtin University of Technology and worked in fashion as a pattern maker and grader until retirement.

A recurring theme in the author’s first book, Eloise and Other Verses, is the inescapable human experience ‘Loss’. She became interested in loss when her father died, followed by the breakup of her marriage and then the death of her mother. Her experience of loss is that it is often dealt with alone — a theme that she explores in her poems. Inspirations is her second published book.

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She can be found on Instagram @constanzehawkins.

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AK25-33. William Huhn’s “Bachelor Holiday”

August 18, 2025August 17, 2025Self Discovery Wisdom Podcast

An Authors Kiss with Sara Troy and her guest William Huhn, on air from August 19th

William Huhn’s Bachelor Holiday is a bittersweet, multi-dimensional journey through memory, mystery, and metamorphosis—where past loves, philosophical obsessions, and shifting weather unfold in language as supple as it is dazzling. In a wonderfully natural idiom, Huhn emerges as something like the Ovid of our time, observing and tenderly participating in the quiet miracles that transpire all around us, if only our eyes were as keen as his. Here, ‘stuff’ rests confidently beside a ‘dew-pearled spring,’ and four-line poems pulse with the same vitality as seven-page meditations. Bachelor Holiday is a collection that leaves me not only grateful, but almost glad to be alive in this strange and beautiful havoc of a century.”

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William Huhn is a critically acclaimed, award-winning writer of poetry and narrative essays.

Huhn, the grandson of Alcoholics Anonymous co-founder Henrietta Seiberling, graduated from Vassar College with a degree in chemistry. He works for a testing and certification company, overseeing its East Coast laboratories. But despite the science side to him, he is really a creative artist at heart.

He studied classical violin from age five and then took up old-time fiddle. He played fiddle across Europe after graduating from college, hoping to raise enough funds to live as a poet. He wrote much poetry during that period and others, many examples of which were published in journals and magazines.

Now, years later, his debut poetry collection was released. Bachelor Holiday, which has been praised by Midwest Book Reviews, Literary Titan, and by notable award-winning writers. Kirkus Reviews gave it a starred review and the book was a finalist at American Book Fest’s 2024 Book Award for Poetry. It also was the winner of the Literary Titan Gold Book Award for Poetry.

He’s had numerous narrative essays published in American Literary Review, Sport Literate, Pembroke, Rosebud, and other publications. Eight of these essays were listed as “Notable Essay” in The Best American Essays series. His writings received two honorable mentions in the New Millennium Award (for nonfiction) and twice he received Pushcart Prize nominations for nonfiction.

His poetry has been published in Verse Daily, The Carolina Quarterly, Talking River Review, 34^th Parallel, San Pedro River Review, Grey Sparrow Journal, Blue Moon Literary and Art Review, and elsewhere. BlazeVOX, his book publisher, is among the most prestigious independent literary presses in the nation.

Born in Bryn Mawr, and raised in Devon, Pennsylvania, he also lived in Southern California and New York. He resides in a suburb of New York City with his wife and two young children.